![]() Sputnik provided an opportunity for Western scientific elites to augment their political power. This provides the basis for exploration, in the following chapters, of specific internal scientific and institutional developments. This section explores the tension between the contingent ideological impact of the ‘Sputnik shock’ itself, and the deeper, decade-long incorporation of the cosmic sciences into the Cold War system in the major western countries, periodically highlighting how these were reflected in the very unique West German scenario and the Max Planck Society. Meanwhile, astronomy and astrophysics developed significantly, thanks to the increase in support for all forms of science that resulted from the Western response to Sputnik, strengthened by spectacular astronomical discoveries throughout the 1960s, and the maturation of a much larger and diverse community of researchers. ![]() And while in the first years of the space age the military-technical approaches and geopolitical strategies regarding outer space were inherited from the nuclear age, in the course of the 1960s the space age matured into a distinct logic based on the unique status of outer space that was agreed internationally. After October 4, 1957, in contrast, space acquired a sociopolitical import that extended support vastly beyond the nuclear worldview and even beyond expert scientific communities, to become a central sphere of competition between the two superpowers this allowed the absorption of researchers coming from diverse fields and traditions that had previously remained outside of the generously funded nuclear research communities. During the first postwar decade, in order to access significant support, researchers rooted in varied traditions and interests had had to align themselves with nuclear-centered research environments. ![]() The launch of the Soviet satellite Sputnik inaugurated the ‘space age,’ and it radically transformed the status of the cosmic sciences in the political and public arenas. All this unfolded still under Allied constraints on military technologies, which hindered the West Germans’ construction of a fully national space launch capability. We describe this transition, from the predominantly ‘nuclear’ period up to 1957 to the nascent space age. Space exploration initiatives in the United States, Soviet Union, France, Britain, and other European countries would now become the model for the German MPI scientists described in the previous chapter, and, eventually, their collaboration counterparts, too. Key players in this radical shift were those scientists around the world who had preexisting strengths and interests in the cosmic sciences, but had formulated their research in terms of ‘nuclear’ topics during the postwar years. Within only a few months of the launch of the Soviet satellite, the status of disciplines such as astronomy and astrophysics changed dramatically, as they now became integrated into the Cold War apparatus, just as experimental physics had been in 1945. ![]() As we will see in subsequent chapters, this reorientation ultimately became one of the vehicles propelling these longstanding traditions towards the most effervescent topics of 21st-century astrophysics. This entry into the space age paved the way to the Society’s subsequent expansion into astronomy (the subject of the next chapter), and also allowed the scientific traditions of the early postwar era to diversify: dependency on ‘nuclear’ sociopolitical interests and funding was now succeeded by a focus on astrophysical subjects proper. Thanks to its strong scientific traditions and political backers, the Max Planck Society was singularly well placed to take advantage of the rising interest in the study and conquest of outer space: while guaranteeing a concerted emphasis on ‘fundamental research’ and international collaboration, it mobilized existing projects in plasma physics, cosmochemistry, and balloon-based cosmic rays, and joined in diverse space activities with the United States and various European countries. This second chapter follows the enormous expansion of the space sciences around the world after the launch of Sputnik, as well as the uniquely constrained West German response and it focuses on how the Max Planck Society maneuvered itself into a role of predominance in the space sciences, under these circumstances.
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